


Goodness and Justice Have Dwelt in Your Heart

by violetclarity



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU after OotP, Angst, Dark Draco Malfoy, Implied/Referenced Abortion, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-Chronological, Non-Linear Narrative, POV First Person, POV Harry Potter, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-08 08:15:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14690064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetclarity/pseuds/violetclarity
Summary: “But sooner or later you would regret having consecrated your love to me, for you do not know my soul.” // An upside-down remix ofWolves and Lambs Look Notby LowerEastSide.





	Goodness and Justice Have Dwelt in Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LowerEastSide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LowerEastSide/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Wolves and Lambs Look Not](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13883715) by [LowerEastSide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LowerEastSide/pseuds/LowerEastSide). 



> This is a remix of _Wolves and Lambs Look Not_ by LowerEastSide for HD Remix 2018. I’ve borrowed the epigraph and some dialogue from the original story. Thank you to unicornsandphoenix, for your support and for beta-reading.
> 
> LowerEastSide, it was so fun to read all of your stories, and so hard to pick which one to remix. I had ideas for a few of them that I wanted to explore, but in the end this one got stuck in my head and demanded to be written. I hope you enjoy it.

"I perceive that goodness and justice have dwelt in your heart: we could not live together. Now you are admiring my good looks which have bowled over more than one woman. But sooner or later you would regret having consecrated your love to me, for you do not know my soul. Not that I shall be unfaithful to you: she who devotes herself to me with so much abandon and trust — with the same trust and abandon do I devote myself to her. But get this into your head and never forget it: wolves and lambs look not on one another with gentle eyes.”  
~ _Les Chants de Maldoror,_ Comte de Lautréamont

***

Mad-Eye casts, I run, and you fall. Your body lands in my arms, a familiar weight. Still warm. How long will that warmth remain, I wonder, now that life and breath are gone?

I am too shocked for sobs.

Ron yells to me. “We’ve got to _go,_ Harry,” he says, and attempts to pull me away from you. No one knows, of course, that you are the one I’ve been meeting with in secret; no one would understand how I was able to compartmentalize, to divide you into two: the Malfoy I hated, and the Draco I loved.

Mad-Eye has less patience than Ron, less patience than everyone, as always. He bodily drags me from you. “I don’t know what this is about, Potter,” he growls, “but I don’t want to be here when the others come back and find little Malfoy dead.”

He Apparates us away. This time, I do cry.

***

It occurs to me only now, in this last moment, as I stare at you and memorize your face, that I don’t really know you at all. I assumed – foolishly optimistic – that when push came to shove, you would pick me.

 _Hypocrite,_ some part of my brain whispers. _Would you do the same?_

No, of course no. But I am not wrong.

Still, it hurts.

“I can’t believe I ever thought you loved me.”

***

I should already be in hiding, but I can’t resist seeing you one last time. As soon as we hear from Snape that an attack is being planned, Mad-Eye and Bill are at my apartment, handing me one of Hermione’s magicked bags and telling me to pack. I beg and bargain for twelve more hours, and as soon as they are gone, I owl you.

It’s a risk, a risk I shouldn’t be taking, but I can’t bear the thought of not seeing you again.

The letter goes to your office, a code; if intercepted it will seem like foolish Harry Potter tilting at windmills again, throwing a fit over all the new legislation. But you’ll know what it means.

You can’t leave work early to see me, because I can’t tell you we’re on a time limit. I pack my things and wait for you, ignoring the butterflies that have taken up residence in my stomach.

When I let you into my apartment you smirk at me, leaning against the wall in feigned relaxation.

“Eager today, were you?” you ask, but I ignore you, sealing your lips to mine, an echo of the first kiss we shared, half a year and a half a war ago.

“I want you always,” I say honestly, and that seems to distract you. You take me against the wall next to my front door, and I let you, because I don’t know when I’ll see you alive again, and I want to feel you alive.

Afterwards you slump against me, gasping for air. We haven’t even gotten our clothes off, and your skin that is exposed is sweaty-sticky against my own.

“Hungry?” I ask you, even though this isn’t part of our routine.

You draw back, seeming hesitant. “Yes,” you say, and that’s how we find ourselves sitting shirtless in my bed, eating leftover pasta and chickpea curry. When we’re done I Vanish the dishes – won’t need them anymore anyway – and press you into the mattress.

This time I take my time, peeling your remaining clothes away, kissing as much of your skin as you have patience for. I fuck you slowly, until you’re cursing my name. I wish we’d lived different lives, where we were still allowed to be innocents, and moments like this were the only time when such harsh words from your lips were directed at me.

“I love you,” I whisper, kissing your shoulder, “I love you,” because it’s seemed a miracle ever since you first spoke those words. You say them back.

After, you doze, and I watch you. You wake after dark and kiss me once before you leave. I only have time for a shower before Mad-Eye is back to take me away.

***

It’s becoming harder and harder to exist like this, split down the middle and pulled apart. I want you so much. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I wish I could tell someone, confess the way I make your edges soften. 

Every day there is more terrible news out of the Ministry. Hermione has begun to suspect that the corruption goes deeper than we knew, so the rest of us try to collect the evidence she needs to mount her case. It isn’t safe anymore for her to be seen at the Ministry.

At some point soon it will no longer be safe for me. I can see in your father’s eyes that he wants to stamp me out under his heel, and I hate him.

***

“Run away with me.”

Your body had been relaxed against mine, and I feel it tighten when I speak. Your voice is tight, controlled. I’m not used to how you sound when you are trying not to be mad.

“Why would I do that?” you ask.

I shrug. “Get away from all of this. Don’t you want to?”

You deflect the question. I let you. “Do _you_ want to?”

I wonder, as I always do, which of your actions are motivated by familiarity, and which by belief.

But you make a good point – could I really walk away from this war?

“What we have works, Potter. We do what we have to do, and then we have each other.”

And that’s what bothers me, because you tell me you love me, but then you say those things. “You make us sound so casual, and not like…”

Words fail me.

“Lovers.” You pause. Your eyes, dare I say it, are soft. “And we are excellent as lovers. But we could not live together.”

Sometimes I understand you perfectly. Other times, I have no idea what you’re trying to say.

***

When Remus dies, it is you I want for comfort. I make excuses to myself, and meet you as usual, and take you to my home. If anyone in the Order knew that I regularly let you into my apartment, I would never hear the end of it, so I don’t let them know.

 _Let you into my apartment._ I snort to myself. As though that’s all I’m doing, as though I haven’t also let you into my bed, my life, even my heart. I know you don’t feel the same, though, so I say nothing as you pull me down onto the bed.

I try to show you how I feel in the way I move above you, in my hands on your face and chest as you push into me. It’s always good with you, but tonight my emotions are too close to the surface, and I find myself saying things I shouldn’t.

“Why do we all have to fight? Can’t we just be happy? I just want to go away and be happy with you.”

Your words are quiet but sure, and I wonder how you always continue to surprise me.

“I love you.”

I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face. “I love you too, Draco.”

***

The third time it happens, I admit that this isn’t a one-time thing. By the sixth, it’s becoming a pattern. This is new, and I’m not sure what to make of it.

Oh, I’m no virgin. I’ve had flings before, in school and after; there was one Muggle man I saw for four months before Hermione found out. She reminded me that everyone close to me was a target, Obliviated him, and sent him to Canada.

I haven’t been with anyone seriously since. Relationships between members of our side quickly become strained. Ron and Hermione couldn’t find a compromise between wanting to fight and wanting to protect each other; I know Ron at least hopes that they might make it work, someday, if this war ever ends. Tonks and Remus broke up when she got pregnant and he begged her to get an abortion; she did, but she couldn’t love him anymore. Fleur has been in France with little Victoire since a month after she was born – Bill hasn’t seen either of them since then.

Given all of that, I’d mostly put off relationships as something to worry about if I survive long enough. It’s a surprise to realize that I’ve found myself in one with you.

In school, you always seemed so cold. It thrills me to discover how hot you can be.

***

You draw me away at another mind-numbing Ministry function. My heartbeat quickens, but not with fear. Your flirtations have grown more bold, but I still don’t know if you mean it. Setting me up for a spectacular rejection is the kind of thing you would have found very funny in school.

But we’re alone, and it’s not as though I’ve ever been too concerned with my reputation. So I kiss you.

You respond instantaneously, and my whole body heats. I press closer to you, relishing the feeling of being alive, the feeling of this moment, with you so willing and warm against me. Things I should definitely not be doing include necking with Draco Malfoy in the Ministry, but I’ve always been impulsive. I undo your belt and slip my hand inside your trousers, and my heart falls when you push me away.

“Not in a hallway, you brute.”

My pulse is racing in my ears, my breath coming fast. You aren’t saying no.

I grab your hand. “Yours or mine, Malfoy?”

“Do you want to be caught with your pants down at the Manor?”

It’s an unpleasant reminder of our situation, of the fight between good and bad and our respective places on either side. I didn’t want to think of that right now. Typical of you to mention it – you’ve always been a bit unpleasant.

But I’m hard, and you’re eager, and this will only happen once.

“Mine then,” I say, and Apparate us away.

***

Ever since I hit you and then apologized, it seems like you’re seeking me out when I’m at the Ministry. Remus has given me a stern lecture about using the sway my name still holds, so perhaps I’ve been around more, but at every boring luncheon, drawn out meeting, or pompous ceremony, you are there. You find me or I find you, and we exchange pleasantries that are never really pleasant. Something changes between us, over the weeks, and I start to look forward to seeing you.

One conversation with you makes an hour of small talk with others seem worth it, but it’s only after one particularly boozy night that I realize we are flirting.

The thought tickles something young in my stomach – Draco Malfoy, flirting with _me._ You’re attractive, of course, and I entertain the thought, but I don’t think anything will come of it.

After all, I’m not going to be foolish enough to trust you.

**Author's Note:**

> [Fic headers](http://hd-remix.tumblr.com/post/174467355969/drarry-fic-goodness-and-justice-have-dwelt-in) and a [pull quote](http://hd-remix.tumblr.com/post/174474129499/its-becoming-harder-and-harder-to-exist-like) have been posted to tumblr. Help promote the fest by liking and reblogging!
> 
> * * *
> 
> I would love to hear what you thought, if you want to leave a kudos or a comment :)


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